AT&T looks to cover 300 million Americans with LTE, 1 million new business users with wired offerings

In its arms race with the nation's top carrier, wireless giant Verizon Communications, second-place AT&T Inc. (T) is digging deep into its pockets, looking to pour $8B USD into infrastructure upgrades.

But big things are ahead, promises AT&T, saying it will cover 300 million Americans with LTE by the end of 2014 -- about twice its current coverage.

AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson cheers, "This is a major commitment to invest in 21st Century communications infrastructure for the United States and bring high-speed Internet connectivity — 4G LTE mobile and wireline IP broadband — to millions more Americans."

[Image Source: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton]

Also announced was a planned $6B USD investment over the next three years to beef up AT&T's wired internet, phone, and television offerings. The investment will allow AT&T to expand its wired internet offerings to an estimated 1 million new business customers, as well as many consumer users.

AT&T has been moving aggressively to expand the reach of its Uverse service, which competes with the likes Comcast Corp. (CMCSA). AT&T feels that it has a key advantage that cable-only providers don't, in that it can offer customers an additional bundled discount for being phone subscribers.

AT&T also announced that it was bumping its shareholder dividend. That decision was made, says Mr. Stephenson due to AT&T's expectation that despite the large capital expenditures, it anticipates continuing to turn tidy profits over the next few years.

maybe in the long run....for certain sites with higher traffic, but for a while I don't see how LTE lowers costs. It's a feature that some customers will pay more for....but hardly a cost cutting technology.

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